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NDP rehabilitates bad-boy Adam Giambrone: Cohn

Can disgraced downtown councillor Adam Giambrone repurpose himself as a new man in Scarborough-Guildwood byelection without atoning, American-style?

One-time NDP golden boy Adam Giambrone,who, tarnished by his sexual transgressions, dropped out of the last mayoral race, is now running in the Scarborough-Guildwood byelection. Will his sins be forgotten and forgiven by the good people of Scarborough-Guildwood? asks Toronto Star columnist Martin Regg-Cohn.
(David Cooper / TORONTO STAR FILE PHOTO)

The Americanization of Canadian politics takes many forms, notably negative advertising and scandal-mongering. Time now for the politics of personal redemption?

Adam Giambrone fervently hopes so.

You may remember him as the one-time NDP golden boy who, tarnished by his sexual transgressions, dropped out of the last mayoral race. Now the candidate who seduced political groupies on his city hall couch is mounting a political comeback, wooing Scarborough voters in a provincial byelection.

Giambrone’s infidelities weren’t so much sexual as political: While cheating on his live-in girlfriend, he technically broke no marital vows. But when he later deceived his own advisers and duped the media in 2010, he damaged his credibility.

Lying about lying with another woman can get complicated. Will his sins be forgotten and forgiven by the good people of Scarborough-Guildwood?

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For inspiration on matters of political mortality and personal morality, I turned to a New York Times chronicle of the rise and fall — and return — of another ambitious politician:
Eliot Spitzer
, who famously quit as New York’s governor five years ago for consorting with call girls, has announced he is running to be city comptroller.

And he intends to atone.

“I’m hoping there will be forgiveness, I’m asking for it,” Spitzer told the Times in New York.

In Toronto, on the very same weekend, our own protagonist took a different tack. He didn’t atone, just changed tones.

Fresh from capturing the hearts of New Democrats to win the party’s nomination in Scarborough-Guildwood (and then warmly endorsed by party leader Andrea Horwath),
Giambrone was taciturn
about how his past indiscretions would play out with voters:

“All the information is out there, and they’ll make that choice.”

Well, here’s some helpful background information: Before he got down and dirty, Giambrone was an NDP up-and-comer. A former federal party president, he won election in Davenport’s Ward 18, rising to become TTC chair.

Driven into political exile, he got a grip on his lust and shifted to wanderlust — travelling the world to see big city transit systems firsthand. But he never gave up on his political rehabilitation, gratefully accepting an invitation from Ontario’s NDP to moderate a couple of panels at the party’s policy convention in Hamilton last year.

Now, he wants to be seen once again as a serious thinker on public policy matters: No longer a wanker but a wonk, as the British might say.

But is he overreaching? Giambrone is not only seeking political rehabilitation but relocation — from west-end Davenport to east-end Scarborough. (His Liberal opponent, Mitzie Hunter, doesn’t live in the riding either, but claims community roots and attended university in Scarborough.)

Will voters make up their minds on policy as opposed to personality and credibility? That depends on how successfully Giambrone can put his past behind him.

In America, where politicians benefit from an unwritten statute of limitations on past peccadilloes, atonement works wonders: Anthony Weiner, the former congressman who resigned for posting photos of his crotch online, is now a strong contender to be mayor of New York. Mark Sanford, the South Carolina governor who lied to the media and his wife about romantic trysts in South America, won a congressional election this year.

My guess is that voters in Ontario have a different sensibility about morality. They care more about humility. Perhaps that explains the bedrock popularity of Mayor Rob Ford, despite allegations he smoked crack cocaine, his Florida arrest for possessing dope, his DUI conviction, and so on.

By contrast, Giambrone comes across as an interloper — a high-flyer who lay low in Toronto and is now offering himself up in Scarborough. He may find Canadian voters more rattled by his sense of entitlement than any lack of atonement.

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